Department of Public Policies and Public Choice, University of Eastern Piedmont.
J Occup Health. 2012;54(1):74-8. doi: 10.1539/joh.11-0089-oa. Epub 2011 Dec 16.
Formaldehyde - a chemical widely used to preserve organic tissues in hospitals - is known to be carcinogenic in the long term and to cause breathing-related symptoms in the short term. We have taken advantage of an experiment to quantify this second effect among hospital workers in terms of probability of showing respiratory symptoms with respect to a benchmark in which tissues are preserved using a procedure with arguably no impact, i.e., under-vacuum sealing.
This paper exploits an experimental situation with controls for potential confounding effects to estimate a logistic regression of the probability that formalin (a solution of formaldehyde and water) causes respiratory symptoms.
The probability for formalin users was found to be eight to ten times higher than for personnel testing under-vacuum sealing.
The substitution of formaldehyde with under-vacuum sealing would markedly improve the health of personnel.
甲醛是一种在医院中广泛用于保存有机组织的化学物质，长期以来已知具有致癌性，并在短期内导致与呼吸相关的症状。我们利用一项实验，根据使用可能没有影响的程序（即真空密封）保存组织的基准，量化了甲醛对医院工作人员的这种第二种影响，即出现呼吸症状的概率。
本文利用实验情况控制潜在的混杂效应，估计甲醛（甲醛和水的溶液）引起呼吸症状的概率的逻辑回归。
发现甲醛使用者的概率比进行真空密封测试的人员高 8 到 10 倍。
用真空密封代替甲醛将显著改善人员的健康状况。
